Two Little Gods
by lackadaisicallyours
Summary: Simple beginnings, the superficially idyllic childhood of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes.
1. Chapter 1: Raveling

**Two Little Gods**

_Chapter 1: Raveling_

Sherlock was sitting in the purple velvet chair, kicking his short legs back and forth; back, forth. It seemed to him he had been doing so for hours, kicking back forth, back forth as he watched the sun crawl across the opposite wall and listened to the innumerable ticking clicks of the many antique clocks arrayed in the room just behind him. From these devices arose, hourly, semi-hourly and quarterly cries of chimes and bells.

He looked into the palm of his hand and traced the lines of his hand over and over again, eying patterns, memorizing the swirls. He searched his memory for a clue as to where he had got that thin white scratch which ran perpendicular to the inner curve of his thumb. Or that smooth indentation under his ring finger - where had that come from? He could not remember, exactly. And he was, he realized, inexplicably frustrated that he could not recall. He thought, perhaps - well...

Perhaps he'd go stark raving mad if he wondered one more time where he'd got that grey smudge.

Perhaps... it was the long hours in the long hall which made his imagination twitch so. Or might it be the alarming chiming of the clocks, in their disruptive harmony, which caused a collision of colors and chemicals in his young mind?

He laid his curly head against the carved oak chair back, cool to the skin - despite the heat of the southern sun beating down upon the house. He looked upward to the high ribbed ceilings, the curves of which he could just barely distinguish in the darkness of the hall. The rippling glint of highly decorated carved surfaces caused him to question how his grandfather had managed to so effectively transport Victorian England into 20th century southern France. Yet somehow he felt more a part of this twisty and macabre world than that which burned outside the oak doors. He would rather moulder in the hall than be subjected to the radiation of summer which often burned his skin and made him squint painfully.

Bored, bored, utterly bored - sat in the hall. This is what the cunning old man did to punish him when he had been a very wicked boy. And he had been, Sherlock knew that he had been a very wicked boy.

But he had become so accustomed to this punishment that it was a punishment which no longer caused strong dread. He had developed the ability to, quite easily, escape all this tedious business of sitting in a dark hall in a hard chair - by slipping into a world of his own making. Left to his own devices, he was boundless within his imagination.

Until the cry of the chimes.

They clanged and sung and screeched down the echoing hall with what seemed to be an intended malevolence. Sherlock fell face first out of his reverie.

In his mind, he can see many things with startling clarity - he doesn't dream of horses running through the green fields of old England, not in his fantasies. He doesn't ride one off to fight the flying dragons like St George did in the songs sung at school - he dreams in puzzles, in complicated rhythms and the act of unraveling them. They are imperfectly mirrored in the tiles of the floor which he stares at, persistently - memorizing, naming and pulling apart the looping and interwoven imported Islamic designs - little masterpieces stolen by imperial conquest, he knows: Ripped away either by the words and or the swords of men with rosy cheeked affectations, he is certain - he dispenses with the personages and gently teases apart the patterns into cogent lines. He fantasizes of walking through a black and green sharply manicured maze, closing in with rapidity on something truly truly terrifying - but he is not afraid, his little heart beats, it races to the end. And there are monsters - monsters are the reward once the maze is conquered - but these monsters, they are the strangest - they have human faces. A thrill runs through his arms, causing his skin to prickle as he looks up at the paintings hanging, across from him, on the wall. The smiling rosy-cheeked stupid faces of the stupid peasants and lords - they smile stupidly and prance and prattle and make their hay - not knowing that the woman in the corner who is leaning on the hay stack, with her hand running through the hay? That is not her hand. That is the hand of the man whom she has murdered and hidden in the hay. But no one can see this but him and it excites more than disturbs him. She is covering up her heinous act by participating in the frolics of the day - she, by benevolently watching the dance, is getting away with murder. Clever woman - were he like her, he would have smiled and laughed and joined in the dance - then he wouldn't be sitting in this hall all morning. He would not be forced to listen to the irritating clanging which sounds like children crying, laughing on the playing field in Sussex - the laughing and the jumping, they're running their healthy little bodies around, their stupid rosy cheeks flushed - running, jumping, pushing - laughing, crying, crying and screaming -

He banged his head violently against the back of the chair, hard and repetitively. Shortly the oak headrest hammered a response from the adjacent room.

A door lock clicked and a cold hawkish face emerged and gave him a sharp look.

Sherlock had been slumped limply, his thin white leg in askew. He presently drew the cuff of his uniform trousers back down and twisted himself into a proper seating in the chair. His eyes drifted back to the tiles to trace a path away from the old man's hard expression -

- an expression Sherlock defiantly engaged in mimicking.

There was a sweeping sound of cloth and then an altogether different face appeared from the door way. Her countenance was as consistently mild as the tone of her voice:

"Sherlock?"

The thin line of his lips relaxed. His fingers untwisted from the ancient upholstery as he calmly slipped out of the chair and followed her into the study.


	2. Chapter 2: Of Chalkhills and Children

**Two Little Gods**

_Chapter 2: Of Chalkhills and Children  
_

He hates going into town. It makes his stomach twist simply to think of it. Ultimately, however, the prefect had forced his coat into his hands and Sherlock Holmes was the last child to get on the train.

This was fine by him. The way he had planned, actually. He ranged along to the very last carriage, carefully picking out the most isolated seat as far away from another living breathing soul as he could possibly get. He threw his heavy coat into the seat across the way and gazed about. There was nothing for half a car in front of him. He carefully scanned the aisle until his eyes found a previously occupied seat which the roving attendant had not yet seen to. He walked over, picked up a used napkin and cup and returned to his set of seats. They were two chairs facing two others, with a table dividing. He arranged his jacket on the back of the seat facing his and put the cup and napkin on a bit of table in front of the seat next. He then slipped into his own chair and scowled silently at a passing elderly man, daring him to sit next to him and attempt some friendly chat. The elderly man hobbled onward.

Sherlock stared at the half eaten prawn mayonnaise sandwich belonging to his non extant companion. Bored, he took a coin from his pocket and spun it on the table surface, watching the flickering sphere encircle the napkin in a solemn little dance. Just as the coin began to patter to a wobbly death, he snatched it between his fingers and commenced another spin.

Last week, this shilling had been given to him by his grandfather - who had not lived in England since decimal currency. Luckily, Sherlock had been aided by his more au courant mother who covertly slipped a twenty pound note into his coat pocket.

How his stomach redoubled in knots at the sight of the sandwich decaying before him. He was nearly made ill - though not as ill as he would have been had the sandwich not saved him from enduring the endless chattering of unwanted companions. Nearly an hour past the official departure time, the blessed train finally left the station. Sherlock laid his head against the chair and closed his eyes, pleased in having managed to successfully maintain his isolation status.

He might have read. But he had become bored with reading given the incredible amount of reading he did when he was ill at his grandfather's house - which, ill, he often was. And because he was so often afflicted he did try awfully hard to be good at the things he was meant to be poor at. He even threw himself into organized sports at school, although he did not much care for sports in general. When he could be bothered, he would put his all into running the fastest, darting the quickest or jumping the farthest, to prove he was the more than capable - to prove he was ahead of the game. Games - now those he rather liked. His great failing on the field, however, was down to the fact that he could not help being distracted when confronted by something far more interesting - like a new thought. A fascinating new idea would suddenly materialize within his head and blindside him - meanwhile, the opposing team's ball was allowed to achieve a goal. Or a more complex theory, perhaps, would spontaneously unravel itself in his mind - and that was the end of that match. He had the annoying tendency to stand stock still in the middle of a field, captivated by a tremendous epiphany of extreme importance! - To be angrily railroaded by stampeding students and often attacked by a football to the head. Sometimes a ball would fall right at his feet and he'd not even notice. He might stand there staring into the distance for a full minute before the shouts and screams of his companions filtered through the haze. And then he would simply turn from the other children and walk away.

He was not a very... popular boy. This was an idea that had occasionally entered into his mind. Although it was also one which entirely failed to interest him.

For twenty minutes Sherlock sat in silence, riding the old Great Western Rail, backwards, east to west. The Sussex Downs, as they rolled past his window, had an inexplicable way of making him feel peaceable. Their gentle rising and falling, combined with the gentle rocking vibration of the carriage, seemed like slow breathing. With detached fascination, such as that of experiencing a waking dream, the young boy drifted in and out of a state of relative calm.

Until there was the squeak of a chair which disturbed Sherlock's rest. His eyes opened to observe a gawkish boy of his own age hugging the back of the seat in the row of ahead of him, gazing over the top. His look was one of curiosity but contained within it something brazen, something part disdainful. Sherlock knew he knew this kid. He was one of the children who had shouted at him on the playing field.

"Is anyone sitting there?" The boy looked over the top of the chair into the empty seat opposite Sherlock.

"YES." Sherlock said in a low voice. His gaze surveyed, impatiently, the tens upon tens of completely perfectly empty seats ready to receive a weary school boy.

"Who?" The child's lip curled. "Your imaginary friend?"

Sherlock's mouth thinned to a line. The boy's eyes stared hotly back at him. Sherlock reflected cool in return.

"Yes. My imaginary friends. Let's see, her right, there - with the black hat, you see her? She's Polly the Child Poisoner."

The other boy's expression hardened. Sherlock's did as well.

"And, um... the one next to me..." He said, his eyes glittering with inspiration, "That's Briss the Psychotic Butcher and, oh, yes..." The corners of his lips twitched upwards, almost in a smile: "The one right in front of you... well, that's where the victim sits..."

There was mutual glaring as the hum of the rail tracks beneath them increased from a soothing murmur to a building rattle, to a deafening roar.

The boy sneered. "You're weird."

"So what." Sherlock crinkled the plastic sandwich wrapper and let it fall, in a ball, onto the table. "Does that frighten you?" He narrowed his pale eyes.

The boy's scowl deepened. But his eyes had wavered. Before five seconds passed, he trotted out the door and, when he reached the hall, booked it in a run.

Sherlock slowly laced his fingers over his school uniform jacket and stared out the window. A light grey rain had begun to fall. The tracks brushed beneath him in resumed whispers.

Now he really was guaranteed to be left alone. Completely alone.

The line of his lips drew upward into a smile.

His first smile in months.


	3. Chapter 3: Smiling and Beautiful

**Two Little Gods**

_Chapter 3: The Smiling and Beautiful Country-Side_

_[Messages: Greetings to my few reviewers and the many more who are silently watching. I appreciate your attention, may you enjoy the story. It has been a long time since I last posted - hopefully this makes up, it's rather a long one. Perhaps you can tell me what you do or do not like about it. Have a nice day and a cup of tea and even a biscuit if you like.] _

The children gathered on the rail platform and awaited their attendant instructors. On either side of the walk was an identical stretch of vibrant rolling green run through here and there with a ribbon of white chalk. Fluffy gold-tinged clouds hung suspended in the big blue sky.

Sherlock grimaced and tugged his black fringe down over his eyes. A matron came and roughly combed his hair out of his face with her claw-like hand. The congregation then proceeded along the platform and onto the path leading to the village. Sherlock shoved his hands into his pockets and trailed miserably behind. His eyes watched the stones pass beneath him on the ground.

The students had been transported from the public school, perched in idyllic calm upon the fringe of a desecrated abbey, to a village in the heart of the South Downs, perched in idyllic calm upon the fringe of a Woolworths. Such outings made not an ounce of sense to Sherlock. The school was in the middle of no where. The town was in the middle of no where. He viewed such events as simply having the effect of removing him from the cotton-wool solitude of his room and his distractions of choice.

The matron shouted his name to gain his attention. He started. And realized that his wandering thoughts had caused him to physically wander into the middle of a churchyard while the rest of the group had turned a sharp left into the town. He had been stood there staring into the sunken graves of bi-centenarians - for who knows how long. The children laughed at him, the boys in their maroon and grey and the girls in their green and white, clashed terribly as they rocked with laughter. He set his face and followed far behind them, down the road.

Sherlock maintained as much distance as average eyesight would allow by focusing his attention on the askew unkempt hair of the tallest boy in class - the bully from the train. The "bully" was not by nature a violent boy, in Sherlock's experience. But that fact was of little consequence - he was worse than brutal, the boy was cowardly: He was not only painfully "normal" but he pursued the illusory ideal of "normality" with such earnestness that just watching him made Sherlock nauseous. He was the sort of boy, James he recalled his name now - James Hatfield; (Sherlock mentally labeled and filed these details for future reference) - was the sort of boy who chose his footwear according to the fashion tastes of MTV presenters. The sort of boy who needed glasses very badly but was too self-conscious to wear them. Pathetic. Disgusting.

The group, by now far ahead, reached the town square and disseminated along the high street. Sherlock waited until the mass cleared. Then he skulked along, observing his surroundings with the smallest molecule of interest. The narrow winding high street consisted of brightly painted buildings, of indeterminate age. Some were precariously leaning forward. And, to the right, was the body of a curving down, interrupted here and there by a crumbling wall which terminating in the Norman church with a sunken and corrupted churchyard shoved full to bursting with monuments melted by time, elements and the inventive introduction of acid rain.

Very pleasant.

Too pleasant.

Children hopped around and pushed against each other to investigate shops for sweets and cheap amusements. Sherlock resigned himself to a patch of cool shadow and regarded the surrounding square He sought a quiet hole in which to curl and read and hide during the four hours of this seemingly interminable waste. Instead, he was greeted by a broad open space punctuated with beatific statues of shimmering benevolent kings and sweet-faced queens. At their feet, statuary images of the dutifully enslaved kneeled in thanks. Behind them, a war monument stabbed into the sky.

Sherlock longed to lounge under the protective feet of that cow-eyed Queen, her monument to mediocrity, and devour the tastiest portions of _The Times_ blotter.

"SHERLOCK!"

The angry matron was telling him that they had done with this part of the village and were moving to another place. He slowly unfolded his legs and shuffled, bleary eyed, into line. Moving down the street, he preoccupied himself with details he picked out from buildings they passed and cars. He took notice of incongruities in structure and character. A woman in a suit was standing on the pavement, talking to a man in a pair of overalls. That was not unusual. Yet she had light splatters of mud on her leather patent shoes. That was unusual. He eyed them carefully, passing her by. There was no mud in the street - the ground was dry. Then he saw beyond her there was a steep drop at the front of a house - it was a stair that led to a cellar apartment. A man in a similar pair of overalls was digging out and replacing the pavement. _Yes, of course__, of course._ She was an agent overseeing a real-estate investment. Not a depraved woman at the head of a rural criminal ring. Sherlock sighed with disappointment. Yet his mind had already begun the inventive wander and now begged satisfaction -

The dug out pavement had reminded him of his grandfather's rambling French mansion - why? The mansion with its mysterious dark halls and vast underworld of cavernous cellars...

The cellars - ah yes. He recalled a story from when he was little. A macabre tale which his nurse had told him. Really she should not have been telling small children such things - but this was the prime reason he had been somewhat fond of her. And he imagined she thought him older and wiser than the others. The tale from his infancy called up vague memories of a cellar - which had at one point been a dungeon - with blackened walls that betrayed fire damage, marked by the clear break where the foundation had been rebuilt. Upon these walls echoed the cries of a servant girl's baby. The cries also echoed from the flagstones - under which the baby was now buried. Sherlock's eyes had glittered.

The story had interested him like no other. Interested him so that he could not even sleep, consumed - not frightened - but consumed as he was by wild imaginings. His pale little eyes became ringed with dark circles. His mother had consented to nurse giving him a spoonful of brandy in a mug of hot chocolate, every night, to ease him to sleep.

As fascinating as the mansion seemed, in theory, now that he was removed from it - he could not help but hate the house, as well as the school, and the village. For these structures made him feel like an animal in containment, able to sense things that other humans did not seem to notice, unable even to speak the same language. Under the smiles of the happy families and the thin mothers with their fat babies, he saw something sinister peeking out from underneath. And it was so dark he could not ignore it. Sherlock could not help he could see the things the others could not see - and yet he was relegated to silence. Silence in the company of others, as grandfather said, lest he embarrass himself and, worse - show up the family.

Silence was key in the Holmes household. Silence above all.

In his silence Sherlock trudged along. He could feel the glares of "the others". The laughter - sometimes stifled but more often outright. He sunk down into his thoughts. But before they could enwrap him in the usual cocoon of warming escapism - he was shouted at.

"Sherlock! If you're not going to play with the other children or visit the shops, at the very least - you must stay with the group."

Ah, the sea of students had drifted away from him again and he was now being summoned and filtered in with the lot. He sighed and enrolled himself, with grudging obedience, amongst his childish fellows as they crashed and bumped against him - as they were high on sugar and freedom. His grimace deepened. He wondered where they all were going to and if it contained a small alcove in which he could hide and brood. Sherlock had locked his focus onto the promise of this fictional place when he was shoved, violently, by an anonymous person against a window - a window containing hanging carcasses of meat.

"Sorry!" someone shouted brutally. His words were enveloped in group laughter.

Sherlock's face whipped around with a venomous look. But the students had already left the scene and were swelling around a turn in the road. Sherlock stood there for a moment, staring at the meat bound by string, fantasising episodes of violence. He felt it welling up in him, the great terrible thing that fell on him occasionally in a wave when he became bored or had too much "alone time" on his hands - he felt it washing over him, the chemical, overwhelming him, irrepressible, acidic - the emotion.

Sherlock swallowed against a rising lump and felt his little hands tremble in his pockets. Mercifully, he was jerked back into reality. An angry matron nearly twisted his arm out of its socket.

"Ow, ow, ow!" - he said, inwardly. He ground his teeth in silent protest.

"You can't take direction can you -? You'll never just play along. You're not at all like the other children, you're so much better - aren't you? Is it so hard to play along, your majesty? Your eminence, is it so very hard to play along?" She jerked and shoved him into order down the street.

Sherlock's unshed tears stung his eyes as his delicate pale skin twisted and reddened under the matron's vicious grip. He was only eight after all, and quite small for eight at that, and the very tall woman would have harmed him by pulling him down the street simply by not stooping down to ease the tension on his arm. But she was doing much more than walking carefully.

When the other herding matrons came into view, Sherlock was finally released. He did not condescend to rub his burning skin for the pleasure of this woman or the children who had turned to watch him scolded. He glared at them with open disdain.

"Lord Sherlock," he heard a snigger. "The dark lord!" He heard, along with: "Ooo!" and they all laughed at their cleverness and shoved along. He was trapped in their midst.

They reached a playing field, a miserable destination - as there was no where to sit and hide except for in the woods. The children were divided into little teams. Sherlock held back purposely and contemplated the woods.

The last time he had fled into the woods, he had hidden there for days in an attempt to live his life-long dream of becoming a feral child - such as he had read about in psychology books. Search parties were called. The dispatched helicopters had amused him. That was the end of his boarding school experience in France. And the only good thing about being in France was that he had seen his mother more often, then. And if he were bad again he feared they might lock up his mother in a tower and send him to a boarding school in Mogadishu -

- Or worse, Kent.

He puttered about, looking for a particularly pleasing piece of grass that was, above all, dry. Then he took a seat on the edge of the field. He presumed he had been cast into some team-like formation but he rather preferred tying strands of grass together and throwing them to see how far he could get different designs of them to fly. He had succeeded in crossing half a meter with an egg-shaped grass formation when a football fell directly in front of his crossed legs.

This event caused his brain to switch back onto the "reality" setting. He suddenly noticed the sound of bird song, wind, and - the groups of screaming children calling his name.

"Sherlock!"

"Sherlock! Kick it!"

"RUN, Sherlock! Bloody useless!"

He stared at the ball boredly for a moment. The children's words grew in volume and violence until Sherlock sighfully drew himself up, pulled his foot back - an inch - and gave the football a single meter skid before he turned around and walked away to the sound of booing and a whistle being called.

Further off, near the edge of the wood, he relaxed into a daydream and enjoyed the cool of the shade. He was inwardly chuckling at what he had done. What idiots they looked - chasing about and pushing and falling over one another - and looking to see if the girls had seen. Yet he was, also, inwardly sighing. On the edge of his senses, he was somewhat aware of the fact that it was, indeed, a very fine day: According to human sensibilities. The sky was blue, the clouds were few - not that he noticed them but out of the corner of his eye, they were there - the wind was drifting, not too much but just enough. The air was warm and the children - they were far away. He warmed slightly to that last notion and felt his clenched insides slowly relax themselves. Then his calm thoughts were interrupted by a violent blow to the head.

This event was followed with universal merriment.

The football had hit him and sat spinning at his side. Sherlock noticed that the matron did not come running - she did not even affect pretensions at concern for his cranial fortitude. In fact she seemed to be stifling laughter behind the back of her hand.

He felt a growl rise up within him. And then, in a red flash of anger, Sherlock ran at them. The ball raced in front of him, a sort of sportsmanlike cover for his brutal base animal rage - this, he imagined, was the heart of sports, at any rate. He chased it like a madman, knocking down everyone in his path, ignoring whistles on his way to the goal - which was guarded by a timorous youth in braces who dove for the grass -

(and later went to hospital with a broken nose).

Sherlock then picked up the ball and threw it at a child standing on the sidelines.

Then he ran into the woods.

The game continued without him. He watched the outline of it from where he sat balled up at the top of a tree. No one came looking for him, this time. Which was just the way he liked it. Sherlock was shaking with rage despite himself. The emotion had won, and was crashing over him like North Sea waves on a breakwater. The little leaves on the trees fairly danced for all the trembling.

"Good thing," he whispered to himself, "good thing roaming bands of ninjas aren't after me tonight - or they'd find - they'd find me hiding in this bloody shaking tree and I'd... I'd be a dead boy."

If only he could find a way to control the emotion, he thought. If he could he would. And he would. Someday he would.

He concentrated on the memory of the bleeding boy lying crying at the goal. He endeavoured not to care about the boy's pain - and he found this was not difficult at all. At least it was much easier to not care about the boy's pain then it was to care about his own. At that realization, he drew his arms around himself and shut his eyes against these thoughts.

Over the hour, his residual chemicals ebbed away. He felt safe enough to climb down from his tree and walk a circuit around the woods, feeling like a boy-wolf. Despite wanting to think of other things - matters of substance, intriguing problems - he could not help contemplating bitterly the injustice of life and the stupidity of others. He felt that if he did not have a distraction, soon, he might just turn into a boy-wolf and devour them all.

The sun began to sink. The children massed near the matrons. It was time to travel home.

The matron eyed his approach sharply then hurried to the front of the class - either tired of dealing with him or hoping against hope he would slip away back into the woods and disappear forever.

They padded along the pavement leading through the village to the train platform. Thankfully, the exertions of the day had tested both Sherlock's brains and his body. His clockwork mind was beginning to wind down and he watched his exhausted leather-clad feet clicking over the pavement. He trailed, as usual, far behind the other students. His pair of shoes was then joined by another pair. Then another. Sherlock felt a shove at his side. A harder shove struck his back.

He had blindly - stupidly! - walked past an alley, all on his own. Clearly, some students had dropped off from the class to wait for him and have a private meeting. There was another push and a laugh - a blur of faces, many faces. Sherlock was busy cataloging them all but did not finish before being hit by a sharp blow to the face. He felt the rough kiss of pavement on his cheek bone as he hit the ground. And was jerked awake.

"Look at me when I'm speaking to you."

Sherlock's head bobbed.

"Look at me - And stand up straight!" A voice ordered in rough brogue.

Sherlock's head shot up. He had been daydreaming, again. It had been weeks since he was expelled from the boarding school. His face was almost healed. Yet he had completely forgotten he was "home".


	4. Chapter 4: Lord and Lady

**Two Little Gods**

_[Greetings reviewers, and the many more silent viewers - thank you for watching. This chapter was long in coming - and don't I know it. Time for a long beach and an even longer long island and - of course - gobs and gobs of mucky mucky fanfiction. But first, a special thanks to "She Steps On Cracks" for that your very insightful and complimentary review. I am glad you are enjoying the story so much, I hope you enjoy today's story just as well, or even more. ]_

_Chapter 4: Lord and Lady_

He was wearing an expensive suit. Tailored, not only, but hand stitched. Stitched a long time ago, however, decades in the past - while cut in a timeless pattern, the date somewhat betrayed by the shape of the lapels, the hems had been twice reenforced with a more resilient thread than was present at the rest of the joins. And the jacket had been let out to accommodate the gut that had gathered with age and comfort - or, rather, age and comfortability. A brush of pink freckling skin across the middle of his face - couple that with the spot of sandy earth speckling his wingtips - betrayed an impulsive coastal walk. Peeking out from the waistcoat was a tie in the family plaid - a strip of pride. Turning methodically in the palm of his hand, a gold pocket watch, engraved as a gift from his eldest grandson - loving and loved. On his right hand, a polished old fashioned gold ring - tradition and devotion.

From this observation the conclusion could be fairly rendered that here stood a retired and affable family patriarch. A strong and striding figure in whose blazing wake a young grandson could walk with confidence.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sherlock's mouth drew tightly into a rigid little line.

Sir Wallace's arms folded tightly into a rigid big knot.

The boy's tiny fists balled in response - sharp little knuckles on the outside, clammy trembling nervousness on the inside.

The arthritic fingers of Wallace's right hand tapped impatiently on his twill clothed arm.

Sherlock watched the tapping fingers with annoyance. Presently, the gathering storm overwhelming his consciousness was temporarily shot through by the slight movement of a willowy figure standing in the shadow of a velvet drapery. She cleared her throat. The innocuous sound was enough to still him.

Sir Wallace, recognizing the give in his grandson's rigid frame, took advantage of the dropped defenses to make the first attack. "Shameful. I would consider procuring some self-defense classes for my fragile grandson were I not utterly convinced he is a violent lunatic in the making."

There was a snickering in the hall. Sherlock's ears pricked up. He had, a moment ago, thought he had heard a scuffling whisper beyond the great oak door. And as his eyes traveled he did see a flickering of shadow which betrayed the presence of someone in the hall way.

His eyes narrowed.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you, boy!"

The jarring noise caused a violent memory of the angry mob of school boys to flash into across his mind. For a millisecond, rapidly replayed were the red glares of violence. And more disturbing than that, the dim look of sad detachment in James Hatfield's face - as he kicked Sherlock in the stomach.

"Freak." James had said, the glasses falling out of his pocket as he kicked Sherlock again.

Loud noises often caused Sherlock to jump. He was very susceptible to sound. Especially sound in the form of a thick brogue booming through army applied Queen's English and ricocheting off oak paneled walls and a vaulted ceiling. Sir Wallace was, however, never "angry". Although he was _very often_ "annoyed".

"St. Pierre's, kicked out. St Maude's, expelled. St Brutus' - will not go back. Eton - the caper with the hats and the caimans. Hurstpierpoint, explosion. Harrow, only a small explosion - nevertheless... Westminster School - beating the bounds? - Breaking hundreds of years of tradition by forcing the faculty to transition to having children use foam-encased sticks..."

Sherlock blinked slowly to prevent himself smiling at that particular memory.

"You have been tossed off the premises of every school in France. I had suggested from the start you be sent to England for your education - I was overruled. Now you have been struck from the books of nearly every school in Britain. They were all very good schools, Sherlock." Wallace folded his hands over the gold watch chain stretched across his rounded waistcoat. "I have pleaded with a headmaster for the last time."

Though his face had broadened and filled out over time, Sir Wallace - with a strong bone structure and sharp grey eyes, maintained an eagle-like visage. Particularly when he peered down his curved nose at his waif-like descendent; like a bird of prey summing up the worth of a small green garden snake.

"You are going back." The finality of his voice cut the tense silence radiating between them. "There are no other options - except to send you to _America_."

There was a perceptible cringe from everyone present - except for Sherlock, who did not stir.

"I will send you to Detroit." Wallace's eyes narrowed. "Mark my words."

"Fine." His grandson responded in a quiet hiss. "That would be interesting, at least."

Wallace's fingertips tapped on his arms as he regarded the indefatigable little mass gathered before him.

Under the withering gaze, Sherlock's physical stature - already miserably diminutive for his age - shrunk a little. Despite himself.

"Let me speak to my son, alone." Said the voice from the shadow by the window.

The grandfather's eyes turned slowly towards her. He looked a carved figure which had taken on life only in order to express his disapproval. Sherlock thought they might stand like that forever, the lord and lady. Twin statues with their shared long pointed noses, deep-set eyes and solemn gravity, he was reminded of those medieval carved oak saints which moulder away in the dark recesses of Catholic cathedrals - they might stand an eternity in the same immovable position, until the tourists were led in to take photos. He was reminded, also, of his own battle of wills with the stupid boy on the train to Sussex, and was curious to see who would win -

"Please." She stated, rather than asked.

Please was enough. Accepting the word as token submission, Wallace folded his arms and grudgingly turned his back on the two present. "Very well."

Mother and son left the room.

Mrs. Holmes descended the spiral stairs with a soft crunching click of heels on the old granite steps. Sherlock's own feet padded behind.

She led him into an old room he had once known well. It had been his nursery. But now the library and a boarding room were more a home to him than this place. His lips thinned bitterly. Granted, the room had never known much happiness. Attempts at making the room seem cheerful were little aided by tall thin slit-like windows which stretched nearly from the flag floor to the very tall ceilings. They lit in a minimum of light. Grand old green globe lamps from the earliest days of electricity descended from the ceiling's unfathomable dark. A couch and bust of Shakespeare, lay in the corner here; a map and picture book, settled over there; wasted gestures of comfort.

His mother brushed a bit of dust from a medieval forest scene tapestry. The woven picture contained jeweled trees and vivid animals in lustrous but time warn threads. She laid her hand gently on a sparrow. She turned her head to look into his blackened eye.

Sherlock twisted his little fingers behind his back.

It was a terrible thing for him to behold - the expression in her pale grey eyes. Large but calm eyes in a white tapered face, framed with curling black hair. Framing a picture of disappointment.

She needn't say a thing at all.

Yet she did.

"Sherlock, you must behave yourself."

His fingers twisted into little knobbly knots. His eyes looked into the tapestry. Into the leaves he escaped, into the branches of trees he wished to climb in order to avoid his mother and the faces of the insipid animals.

"What am I supposed to do with you?" Her standard even voice betrayed a hint of desperation.

The desperation prompted anger to express on Sherlock's face.

She walked over to him and bent down. "If you do not behave yourself, well -" She lifted a hand. He did not flinch. He would never think to flinch when his mother was near. She wanted to caress his hair, to soothe him, but she stayed her hand. "Well I - I don't know what I'll do." She uttered bitterly and dropped her hand.

Sherlock stomped his foot. He threw his hands to his sides and spun away from her with an angry wounded growl. "Well - then send me to the moon for all you care!"

He stormed to the wall and pushed the tapestry away but failed in removing it. His hands gripped the stone wall, cold and damp, his fingernails grated into the niches, wall and nail, took the brunt of his anger.

His mother clicked up and pulled his hands away from the wall. She held the tips of his fingers between her hands. "Sherlock, you know I don't want to send you away..."

"It's Wallace-"

"Call him grandad..."

"Never - not ever."

His lip trembled so hard he bit down upon it. Immediately he felt all the anger drain from him. The chemical seemed to flow down from his brain and out of his toes and disappeared into the darkness. And he was filled up with - nothing - again.

"It's not Walla- grandad's decision, it's mine. This is for your own - good."

He jerked his hands but she held them firmly between her palms.

"You need to be with other children your age." She added. "Typical children, in a normal environment."

"There's nothing -normal- about other people..."

She paused, her eyes regarding him with cool concern.

"When you were at school in France, you came home in the afternoon. You liked that."

Sherlock ceded half a pitiful nod.

"Then you were sent to England and you come home at the end of week's end. What will happen if Walla - if we - send you to America? There won't be any more weekends at home."

He ground out: "I don't. Care."

She let his fingers slip.

His mother stood. Her typically perfect and elegant posture was curved with sadness. Her hand rested on her throat.

In the pale light afforded by the medieval windows, he regarded his mother. He thought over what was best to do. Then he hesitantly stepped forward, muttered something indecipherable, and sobbed crocodile tears into the folds of her dress.

This act was the ticket to either forgiveness or acceptance of his sins. He had learned a very few things about the world of interpersonal relations, at his tender age. Guardians required a sign of submission - as his mother had shown to Wallace, as a step towards committing to joint negotiations. And mothers, women - begged falsity in most circumstances, because they understand tears better than reason. Even his own mother, who he regarded as a very logical and intelligent female creature, could rarely resist responding to the emotional plea.

And so he manufactured one.

His mother was wise. She knew the tears were false but still she stroked his hair. And for his part, he was comforted. There were no such comforts in boarding schools: All children, no matter how remote, recognize the smell of their mother's hair, and the softness of their skin, and very quickly Sherlock was feeling sleepy and coveted and calm.

Until he heard the snickering - Again. His head lifted. Something crossed his mother's countenance which was quite rare. She gently removed herself from the embrace and flashed from the room in a rustle of a cotton dress. Sherlock heard a muffled smack - such as one as a human hand makes when it hits the backside of the trousers of a school uniform. Followed by a sharp cry of protest. And his mother returned, running her thumb under her eyes. He did not witness any tears. But clearly she was upset. He had upset her more than he had expected he would.

"Your brother is home from school." She said with a false smile and knelt down again, brushing curls of hair out of his face. "Why don't you go play with him?"

Sherlock looked up, tears in his bright eyes, and nodded with a soft smile.

"He's in the kitchens, as usual, I imagine. Why don't you go find him and have a biscuit?"

He smiled again and trotted out of the room - in the direction which led to the part of the house furthest away from the kitchens.


End file.
